Browsing: Tony Bradbourne

News
Special Group’s Michael Redwood: Sydney office ‘definitely on track’ to be bigger than Auckland office by end of 2016
By

Special Group chief executive Michael Redwood says business on the other side of the ditch is growing so quickly that he anticipates the Sydney office will employ more staff than the Auckland branch by the end of 2016. And this rapid growth, which has seen the Sydney office grow to 30 staff within 18 months, was recently recognised by Sydney-based Adnews magazine, which declared Special Group the Emerging Agency of the Year.

Features
This way up
By

It started with one desk, three partners and no clients in late 2007. Now, as Ben Fahy discovers, Special Group has 30 clients in New Zealand, an Australian office that’s running hot and a desire to take its mix of magic, logic and decency to the world.

News
Mobiles, music and multiplayer gaming technology: how 2degrees let punters ‘play the bridge’
By

For many, it was disappointing to see the Auckland Harbour Bridge return to its standard gun-metal grey hue after 2degrees, Special Group and Gladeye added some colour—and musical interactivity—to the landmark during the seven week Play The Bridge campaign. And bringing “New Zealand’s largest lightshow” to life was an impressive feat of digital production problem solving and creativity.

News
Special wins Holden’s hand after advertising duel
By

After separating from its long-time agency Ogilvy, Holden decided to choose its new creative partner in a novel way by giving the two top contenders FCB and Special Group their own real world tests. And it’s Special Group that has come out victorious.

News
They’ve got the whole bridge in their hands: 2degrees and Special Group get set to light up Auckland
By

2degrees is attempting a fairly difficult telco trick at the moment as it tries to morph from a challenger brand with lots of low value customers into a grown-up company that’s more appealing to the high-rollers—and it could be argued its agency Special Group is on a similar trajectory as it evolves from a small indie with small clients into a serious multi-national network that’s competing with the bigg’uns. And now the pair are set to launch a very grown-up stunt to celebrate Auckland’s 175th anniversary, its new phone plans and the launch of Samsung’s new Galaxy S6 by turning the Auckland Harbour Bridge into an interactive light show.

News
Carl’s Jr and Special Group explore radio loophole, embrace theatre of the mind
By

There was a bit of kerfuffle recently when Carl’s Jr. had its American television commercial promoting its new Memphis BBQ Burger banned from television in New Zealand by the Commercial Approvals Bureau for using sexual appeal in an exploitative and degrading manner to sell an unrelated product. It responded by running a digital campaign driving people to view the ad on its YouTube channel. And it’s continued to embrace the controversy, with Special Group letting imaginations run wild by repurposing the TV commercial for radio.

News
Story time: Special Group takes a deuce at inaugural Australasian Branded Entertainment Awards
By

Entertainment has long been part of advertising, as evidenced by the (paraphrased) old Saatchi & Saatchi mantra of ‘if it’s interrupting you in your living room, it better be good’. But that idea has evolved over the years, to the point where Cannes added a branded content category into the schedule this year and Mumbrella recently held its inaugural Australasian Branded Entertainment Awards. And Special Group managed to take home a silver for The Gravity Coffee Run in best integration of brand story-telling (non-fictional) and a gold for The Smirnoff Night Project in transmedia. Air New Zealand’s Kiwi Sceptics campaign by Host Sydney took two bronzes in the same two categories.

News
AA Insurance and the Specials keep righting wrongs in next phase of ‘Let’s Get Things Sorted’
By

AA Insurance and Special Group took the opportunity to remind the nation about the positive aspects of insurance with the launch of its big 90 second brand ad a few weeks back. And now it’s following that up with a series of 30 and 15 second product ads—once again nicely crafted by Special Problems—and an attention-grabbing outdoor campaign that aims to communicate the new ‘Let’s get things sorted’ positioning and showcase the various facets of the business, from tailored car insurance to personal case managers.

News
Gravity gives birth to advertising quintuplets as Coffee Run project hits screens
By

Kirstie Stanway got the shock of her life when she turned up for her first day as an intern at More FM and ended up flying to El Salvador as part of a marketing campaign for Gravity Coffee. And now Kiwis get to see how her rather unique experience panned out in a rather unique way, with her journey being made into a series of 45 second TVCs that will play in the first ad break of 3 News each night this week.

Opinion
Special Group’s Semi-Permanent manifesto
By

Special Group is the first New Zealand ad agency ever to be asked to talk at the Semi-Permanent creativity conference, which packed out the Aotea Centre in Auckland for a few days recently and featured headline acts like New York artist Ron English, UK digital agency Hi-Res, San Francisco-based Industrial Light & Magic and Wallpapermagazine. The local lads opened proceedings in front of around 2000 people with a talk centred around the eight things they do to make their work more effective that showcased the diverse range of work they have produced over their four years of existence—including the Best Award-winning packaging work for ecostore and the 2011 AXIS-award winning AXIS opening film. So here’s a summary of their presentation.

News
FOUR’s home of not rugby wins Glossies
By

The January/February round of voting for The Glossies has been tabulated, and FOUR’s Home of NOT Rugby in ACP’s Metro, cooked up by FOUR and Special Group, has taken top honours with 27 percent of the vote. Yellow Pencil BrandSharp’s effort for Red Paris in NZ Marketing got them tantalisingly close, with 26 percent, and Chris Dobbs was third for Working Style in Metro (10 percent). That’s two in a row for Special Group…

News
Ecostore’s personalised mag covers win hearts, minds and inaugural Glossies Award
By

The November/December round of voting for The Glossies has come to an end and the creative campaign concocted by ecostore, Special Group, Naked and Salt Interactive that ran in ACP’s Little Treasures and allowed parents to turn their children into cover stars has claimed first place with 22 percent of the 574 votes received, beating out Alt Group’s Fisher & Paykel ad in Cuisine (18 percent) and Tourism Queensland’s multi-page execution (EBOOK_LTQG_2011_LR) in Let’s Travel Golf edition (15 percent).

News
Folded newspaper flies in award for Special Group
By

Flying in the face of all the election and Christmas related advertising that has been dominating our newspapers lately, November’s winning ad, by Special Group, was created for the Newspaper Publishers’ Association using an innovative full page designed to be folded so the whole newspaper could be posted to someone overseas to celebrate the Rugby World Cup All Blacks win.

News
It’s just not rugby: MediaWorks and Special Group up the anti-establishment ante with new FOUR campaign—UPDATED
By

Put yourself in the shoes of a rugby hater for a moment. Almost everywhere you turn you are bombarded by earnest, emotional ads from sponsors of the All Blacks or the Rugby World Cup talking about long-awaited victory, national pride, unwavering support and inner belief, while the ‘cluster ruck’ of domestic broadcasters (Sky, Rugby Channel, TV3, TV One and Maori TV) screening, repeating and analysing the Big Rugby Event (BRE) means it will probably be quite difficult to escape the tournament when it kicks off. No doubt, there is plenty of excitement in the air, but MediaWorks and Special Group have decided to zig while everyone else is zagging with a cheeky, entertaining new campaign for FOUR that references the overkill and positions the channel as ‘The Home of Not Rugby’. 

News
Advertising becomes entertainment as Special Group’s Smirnoff Night Project kicks off
By

Back in November, Smirnoff and Special Group launched a campaign to get people to come up with kerrrazzeee ideas for events, with the winning concepts brought to life and the highs and lows of the lead-up and execution filmed for an unscripted reality show that would screen on FOUR. Well, that show kicks off tonight at 10.30 and Special Group creative director Tony Bradbourne is pretty damn excited about it.

News
Advertising advertising: Axis gets a starring role with TVNZ
By

New Zealanders seem to have something of a love/hate attitude when it comes to marketing and advertising. Some despise it because it tricks people into buying things they don’t need, makes the nation fatter/drunker/more dangerous and is an industry supposedly filled with wankers. But others seem to be able to look past all that and simply enjoy biting into the fruits of the industry’s labour. Whatever the reason, there’s no doubt Kiwis are interested in it, as evidenced by the fact that the Fair Go Ad Awards is regularly among the country’s top rating shows. And CAANZ and TVNZ are hoping to tap into this interest and showcase the creative, innovative side of the business by filming the Axis award show and screening it on Ondemand.

News
Special Group tunes in to MediaWorks
By

Special Group has continued its hot run of form in 2010 by nabbing a slice of the MediaWorks TV business. And the first task has been to rebrand and relaunch the youth-focused music channel C4 and turn it into a slightly less youth focused mainstream entertainment channel called FOUR.

News
Creative fires burn bright as little old New Zealand gets big old Cannes result
By

After every Olympic Games, New Zealand’s obsession with medal tables and country rankings becomes apparent as we do a few sums, take comfort in our per capita performance and repeatedly utter the phrase ‘punching above our weight’. But in the advertising world, if results from the Cannes Lions are anything to go by, New Zealand doesn’t even need to rely on per capita results, because the 25 Lions won by Kiwi agencies, which was up from 23 in 2009, meant we were again near the top of the pile in terms of total awards won.